1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a flexible display panel, and particularly, to a flexible display panel which is bendable, rather than an existing glass substrate, a fabrication method thereof, and an image display terminal unit using a flexible display panel.
2. Background of the Invention
Flat panel displays replacing existing cathode ray tube (CRT) display devices include a liquid crystal display (LCD), a field emission display (FED), a plasma display panel (PDP), an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display device, and the like.
A flat panel display device includes a plurality of switching elements formed on a glass substrate, gray levels of an image are represented by pixels according to signals applied thereto to implement an image. In particular, among flat panel display devices, LED or OLED display devices, which is lighter, thinner, shorter, and smaller, are commonly used in portable devices such as small cellular phones, as well as in large TVs.
FIG. 1A is a view illustrating an image display terminal unit using an existing flat panel display device, and FIG. 1B is a view illustrating a configuration in which a flat panel display device is received within a housing of the image display terminal unit of FIG. 1A.
Referring to FIGS. 1A and 1B, the related art image display terminal unit 1 has the exterior formed as a front housing 2 and a rear housing 3 are coupled. A display panel 5, an interface module 11, a camera module 14, and the like, are accommodated within the rear housing 3.
When the image display terminal unit 1 is viewed from the front side, the display panel 5 is disposed such that an active area A/A is exposed to a central opening of the front housing 2, and a non-active area N/A is covered by the front housing 2 and coupled to and supported by the rear housing 3.
Also, a camera sensor module 14 and a sensor module 15 performing a camera function and a sensor function, respectively, are disposed in parallel to a certain module 18 in an upper portion of the display panel 5, and the interface module 11 receiving user's manipulation is disposed in a lower portion of the display panel 5.
In this structure, in an upper portion of the display panel 5, a substrate 17 of the camera module 14 and the sensor module 15 and a substrate 19 of the certain module 18 are disposed to be adjacent in parallel, determining a width (a) of an upper bezel region of the image display terminal unit 1, and in a lower portion of the display panel 5, a substrate 12 of the interface 11 is disposed, determining a lower bezel region, and an overall width of the image display terminal unit 1 includes the upper bezel region and the lower bezel region.
Meanwhile, recently, a width of the bezel region, excluding a region in which an image is displayed, of the image display terminal unit 1 tends to be minimized, and thus, the image display terminal unit is designed such that margins between the display panel 5 and the respective modules are minimized.
However, in a case in which the display panel 5 and the substrates 12, 17, and 19 of the respective modules are disposed in an overlapping manner to minimize a width of the bezel region, a short-circuit may be occurred between the substrates and the overall thickness of the image display terminal unit 10 may be increased.
Also, since a driving unit 51 and a substrate connection pad 52 are required to be installed in the non-active area N/A of the display panel 5, there is a limitation in reducing the width of the non-active area N/A, making it difficult to minimize the width of the bezel region of the image display terminal unit using the related art display panel.